MHSJN - Inside/Outside of the institution: contradictions, blockages, possibilities
On Friday 26 June 6pm, the Mental Health and Social Justice Network welcomes you to Inside/Outside of the institution: Contradictions / Blockages / possibilities.
This event brings together people who work within, alongside, against and beyond mental/health institutions to think collectively about the contradictions that shape our everyday encounters with care. Across the UK and elsewhere, institutions are sites of both refuge and harm, solidarity and exclusion, possibility and profound blockage. Many of us move through these spaces as workers, service users, survivors, organisers, neighbours, friends or family members, often occupying several of these positions at once. This event invites all those who navigate these thresholds to reflect on what forms of care, resistance and imagination become possible when move between the thresholds and work on institutions from both the inside and the outside at the same time.
Together, we will ask what it means to inhabit an institution critically, creatively, or conditionally. How do histories of anti colonial psychiatric, feminist, neighbourhood based struggle shape the terrain on which we organise today. Where do we find openings, and how do we recognise the blockages that structure our work. And what possibilities emerge when we bring our experiences, tools and contradictions into conversation.
The event is open to service users, survivors, those who have been unable to access mental health services, community organisers, cultural workers, practitioners, researchers, neighbours and anyone interested in thinking about mental health, care and institutional life.
Refreshments provided.
Speakers
Fernando Balius is a philosopher, writer and teacher in mental health. His comic Traces of Madness won the Audience Award at the Barcelona Comic Convention and has been translated into English by Graphic Mundi and into Italian by Asterisco Edizioni. In it, he describes the experience of hearing voices in his head from a non-psychopathological perspective. He also publishes articles at completely irregular intervals in the online magazine CTXT. For two decades he has been involved with collectives and spaces dedicated to defending the rights of people experiencing psychological distress.
Entrar Afuera is a militant research collective focused on exploring radical care practices involving public institutions, territories and people. Its participants come from an array of different backgrounds connected to care in different ways, including public health, primary care, mental health, culture and art, social movements and radical education and pedagogy. Its work began in 2016 with projects in Madrid, Trieste and Barcelona in collaboration with a variety of health and art institutions. The past two years Entrar Afuera has been one of the collectives involved in the programme Museo Habitat in Barcelona, and we are currently working on the curation of an exhibition on art and mental health for the Santa Mònica Arts centre in Barcelona.
Deptford People's Heritage Museum is a museum without walls that links contemporary experiences of racial injustice - including questions of health and mental health - through legacies of colonialism and diaspora in the local area.
Joyce Jacca is Health Inequalities Community Link worker for North Lewisham Primary care network. Her work involves looking at services the will help that helps and support community and patient bridging the gap between the community and the NHS while also challenging the health inequalities a voice for the community. She is a founder of the Deptford People’s Heritage Museum. She is an international community development organiser with over 30 years experience. and founder of Future of Women International (FOWI), which supports and empowers women & groups in self-development.
Tracey Jarrett AKA Sister Jahsunray is a Community Development Worker & Community Activist Pan-Africanist. She is also founder & CEO of Shine Your Light, Training Consultant in Equality Diversity Inclusion (EDI) with special knowledge in Black Mental Matters, UK Racism, Gender Inequality, and Older People; delivering Bespoke and licensed training courses. She is also a Radio Show presenter on a Community Talk Show for a Pan African Radio Station and podcaster. She leads the study group on BLACK Autonomous Spaces.
Husseina Hamza is founder and chair of Red Ribbon Living Well, supporting people affected and living with HIV. She is a health justice activist, a Community Advocate and Peer Mentor. She is a volunteer at the Deptford People’s Heritage Museum and part of the project We are Here…We are On the Move, and co-leads the Andaiye Women’s Reading Group.
Janna Graham is a researcher with Deptford People’s Heritage Museum, works at Goldsmiths and studies intersections between institutional analysis, racial injustice and liberatory struggle.
Psychosis Therapy Project - Usemi Racial Trauma Clinic is a specialist Mental Health service for marginalised communities. Their trauma-informed interventions empower and destigmatise service users by validating their lived experience and offering safe spaces of Compassion, Care and Connection. Their evidence-based therapies substantially improve the well-being of highly vulnerable and isolated individuals and effectively reduce the risk of hospitalisation and suicide.
Supported by the CHASE Doctoral Training Partnership.